iTunes Authorization Issues
I had a problem that Apple seemed unable to help with but I know a lot of others have had trouble with and wanted to share my solutions.
After getting a new iMac, I got the following message when trying to sync my iphone: "This computer is no longer authorized to play purchased items that are on the iPhone "XXX's iPhone" Would you like to authorize this computer for items purchased from the iTunes store?"
No, problem, I thought. I just authorized the new computer as the message prompted me to do. But it failed, giving me the message that said that I already had 5 authorized computers. Yet when I logged into my itunes account, the system showed I only had 4 authorized. So I emailed apple and they reset all authorizations -- just incase there was something flakey going on in the authorization process. I re-authorized my new computer and tried syncing again. But I still got the message that I already had used the maximum number of authorizations.
When the message came up saying I wasn't authorized to play/transfer some songs, it gives you the option to see details and I viewed the listing of songs that wouldn't sync. I noted some of the songs and went to my itunes music library. When I right-clicked on one of the songs in itunes and chose "Get Info," I noticed that the account the songs had been purchased on was an old one. Bottom line --I had 2 itunes accounts. Fortunately, I remembered the password to this account and logged into it in itunes. Sure enough, authorizations on that account had been maxed out. I deauthorized all then re-authorized my new computer on that account (the old one) and that fixed the issue. Turns out each song is linked to a specific account and in order for a song to play it must be authorized on a given computer through the account where it was bought.
I am posting this because apple support was woefully inadequate in what I think is probably a relatively common problem -- onne that seems incredibly difficult to find an answer to anywhere on the web.
After getting a new iMac, I got the following message when trying to sync my iphone: "This computer is no longer authorized to play purchased items that are on the iPhone "XXX's iPhone" Would you like to authorize this computer for items purchased from the iTunes store?"
No, problem, I thought. I just authorized the new computer as the message prompted me to do. But it failed, giving me the message that said that I already had 5 authorized computers. Yet when I logged into my itunes account, the system showed I only had 4 authorized. So I emailed apple and they reset all authorizations -- just incase there was something flakey going on in the authorization process. I re-authorized my new computer and tried syncing again. But I still got the message that I already had used the maximum number of authorizations.
When the message came up saying I wasn't authorized to play/transfer some songs, it gives you the option to see details and I viewed the listing of songs that wouldn't sync. I noted some of the songs and went to my itunes music library. When I right-clicked on one of the songs in itunes and chose "Get Info," I noticed that the account the songs had been purchased on was an old one. Bottom line --I had 2 itunes accounts. Fortunately, I remembered the password to this account and logged into it in itunes. Sure enough, authorizations on that account had been maxed out. I deauthorized all then re-authorized my new computer on that account (the old one) and that fixed the issue. Turns out each song is linked to a specific account and in order for a song to play it must be authorized on a given computer through the account where it was bought.
I am posting this because apple support was woefully inadequate in what I think is probably a relatively common problem -- onne that seems incredibly difficult to find an answer to anywhere on the web.
iMac
